Over the last few years, Loren Ridinger and Steve Ashley have pushed social media as an essential part of the online marketing experience: “If you’re not doing it, you’re not doing the business,” says Steve. While 80% of the population shops online, and more than 50% have shopped more than once, e-commerce will be 1.4 trillion by the end of the year. People do it to save time, compare prices, and to have more variety. So that means the next step is educating them about why your products are the ones they should buy online, and that’s where social media comes in.
The dynamic, information-packed social media presentation covered the 10 commandments of social media—but like the original 10 commandments, they all boil down to one Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated: be there throughout the conversation, not just when you want something from someone.
Why Should I Do It?
“Social media isn’t a strategy, it’s a conversation,” says Loren. But having a simple strategy for amplifying your conversation can help you define, control, and promote your brand. A word of mouth conversation has the impact of over 200 TV ads, so you have influence you wield in your daily life—but are you using it online?
Steve and Loren modeled the kind of online conversation that can easily be taken offline—a compliment about losing weight or looking great can lead to a conversation about TLS or Motives, and an appointment to learn more. Similarly, you can follow up with real-life conversations online, by friending on Facebook or following on Twitter someone you meet and talk with in person. There are online/offline equivalents for all our interactions, such as:
Host a shopping party, where you can teach people how to save money shopping and earn cash
OR
Use Shopbox to share your finds and your portal with your friends
Stage a beauty trunk show and introduce Motives, Skin Care, Nutritional products
OR
Post a link to one of MA’s YouTube videos that demonstrates the products for you
Call your friends and friends of friends and update them on what you’re doing
OR
Use your preferred customer report to generate a customer mailing list in seconds, and reach out to your customers virtually
The key in work and in life, online and offline, is making it fun, and of course, saying thank you! Facebook likes, Twitter retweets, sharing, reblogging, reposting, and other demonstrations of appreciation for good content will make your online contacts do the same with your content. But how do you create good content yourself? How do you brand yourself and your channels as a trusted source?
What Do I Do?
You need a plan, and Steve and Loren have one: Set your objectives, monitor conversations, understand motivations, identify how to add value, select your platforms, strategize your approach, test and learn, rinse and repeat.
Great content is : relevant, fresh, varied, and consistent. It’s not just about the product, it’s about your customers’ needs. Find scientific studies about weight loss, beauty trend stories, health news, and other content to engage your potential customers and show them that they can trust you, because you’re more than a salesperson. Plan your content in advance, with rich visuals, multimedia, and a logical order—if you always post on certain topics on certain days, people will see you as a news source and remember to come back. And once you have them there, make sure to include a strong call to action: instruct people to “like” a post, ask them to answer a question, or provide them with a link to a product (for instance, if you post a coupon) so they know what to do with the post.
The donts are simple: Don’t cross-post and bore your friends, don’t delete negative comments or things you simple disagree with, don’t be inauthentic, and don’t be inconsistent—all things we’d tell others not to do with their posts, hence the Golden Rule! “Social media is 70% casual conversation, 20% news and events with your business, 10% actual sales pitches,” says Steve, so keep those proportions in mind.
Where Do I Do It?
There are more networks than ever before, so don’t bite off more than you can chew—choose your networks and focus on the ones that are most in line with your business, that you’re passionate about and like doing, that hit your target demographic, and that work for your schedule and your level of tech-savvy. Everyone should be on Facebook and Twitter, but beyond that, Loren uses Instagram and Pinterest, because she’s a visual person and that’s how she likes to tell stories. If you’re a talented writer, blogging on Tumblr or WordPress or composing longer posts on Google+ might be a better fit for you.
Facebook: post your wins! New team members, successful meetings, new stories—those will get shared among your group and with other related Facebook groups through your network. Success attracts success.
Instagram & Pinterest: share the story. Not the business story, but your story and those of your customers and team members, giving people some insight into your life, your lifestyle, the people around you. Let them see you!
Twitter: texting with thousands of people. Whenever you or someone you’re interested in is talking about something, that message can get passed along to anyone. Your message is always amplified by anyone who responds to it. What you tweet, you will attract, so keep your messaging focused. Twitter especially is a great customer service channel, so use it!
On every channel, make sure that when you dead potential customers, you have a place to take them to: a link to the product, to your portal, to a blog that explains the cosmetics or vitamins you’re talking about.” It’s easy, but will you take the time to do it?” asked Loren. The response from the crowd seemed to be a unanimous yes!
What Do I Do Next?
Register for your accounts, and start making connections, starting with your Market America family: this list on the MA blog has links to all of our social media channels so you can interact with us!
And as we’ve proved this convention, by sharing the presentations with everyone at home, MeetON is the next step in social media—it’s the perfect way to interact with people who you’re interested in and learn from them. If social media is all about telling a story, MeetON.com’s social streaming is the next step in sharing, and as a Market America UFO with access to the site, you’re already ahead of the social media game. Right now is the time to take advantage of everything social media has to offer—you can do it!